


The reason why

by ShadowSelene (Shadowdianne)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-01-24
Packaged: 2019-10-15 15:24:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17531294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowdianne/pseuds/ShadowSelene
Summary: Prompt: it's funny how your preconceived perceptions of a person changes as soon as you hear them speak.Asked by emettkaysworld via tumblr





	The reason why

If someone dared to ask her, Emma would answer with a shrug, a shake of her head, a negative laced in fear. Loving Regina was, after all, a truth she had lived with for a long time. Longer than anyone would even begin to guess.

But, even if she didn’t reply to the question –so often peeking through her father’s knowing glances, Henry’s stares, Snow’s own soft and hopeful speeches- there was an answer to it. One that came to her when she let her guards lower, her mind stop, her walls crumble.

She had always needed to be quick on her feet.; ready to distinguish who was lying to her, who was about to flee, who was merely in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Which was why she had learnt to never judge a book by its cover. No matter what kind of cover they used, no matter how good, how polished, it could be.

An ideal she had lived by for the longest of times. Ever since she had gotten out of prison, her heart broken in a million pieces and Neal’s name seared on her brain. Knowing when, who, why, was a lesson she had been forced to learn and enforce around her, on her everyday life.

Which was the reason why she stumbled when she had first met Regina: seeing her approach Henry with anxiousness on her eyes. The brunette’s perfume wasn’t registered until much, much later but those eyes, quick and full of worry, were the very first thing her mind zeroed in. Her clothes being a close second. Expensive, tailored to a body she was unable to stop herself from gawking at for the longest of moments. Her hands, her shoulders, were the third thing her eyes focused on; on the way they froze, falling into place, locked, when Henry moved away, blazing fury shining on his own features, so eerily similar than her own.

“You are Henry’s birthmother?”

And there it was; her voice, the pitch, the tone. Warm, thick, low, inviting, sinful.

And hiding something.

Hiding something that had made her stop, smile, swallow. She hadn’t really pictured anything when Henry had first mentioned his mother, the mental image of someone who adopted a kid blurred by years of wishful thinking and bitter anger. The woman who had stood in front of her that moment was, without a doubt, not what she would have expected. And, as such, when Regina turned and led her to the inside of the house she could only blink and follow, a pull beginning to form on her chest. A call that would eventually become the force that would make her run between angry citizens, freeing Regina from Victor’s clutches despite her own residual anger at the woman. A feeling that would make her follow her outside the dinner, not paying any mind to the curious onlookers from inside, a shy smile forming on her face when Regina would eventually mutter how sorry she was; her voice less smoky, less thick and yet as inviting as it had first been.

And, through the years, she got to know ever fractal of that voice, every layer, every version of it: learning to follow it no matter where it went, learning to recognize it, to distinguish it even from the brunette’s own self.

Which was why now, after so many years, she could only shrug and laugh mirthlessly at herself as she eyed her own reflection on the mirror, Hope ready and a weight on her chest.

“We are going to be late.” She heard and she flinched at his voice, at the noose she felt on her throat whenever she heard him, at the trap she had walked in by herself, afraid and stupid and alone and willing, apparently, to destroy herself, to let everything crumble in a very different way.

“Tell them Hope is fussy.” She supplied and she saw the question in his eyes, glowing above hers across the mirror and the room but she didn’t offer any further explanation, not wanting, not ready, to offer anything yet.

And so she stood there, for a few more seconds, time ticking by and magic stronger than ever on her veins before she finally turned and nodded to herself and him, to the baby on her arms.

“Let’s go.” She said, dirty white sparks crackling already, crawling up her legs.

And this time, when she entered into the room, stumbling once more, Regina’s voice was what welcomed her back in, making her smile and tremble and wish and want and, ultimately, break.

“You didn’t think I was gonna miss this, did you?”

And, she found herself thinking, perhaps, only perhaps… she could still have another chance, a different one


End file.
